“About 1,000 people were arrested in 2019 for illegal border crossings from Bangladesh to India, with 445 of them returning home in November and December,” Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Maj Gen Md Shafeenul Islam said on Thursday.
Proper verification of the arrested Bangladeshi nationals was conducted through local representatives. It is reported that there were 253 cases filed against them for illegal trespass. Initial investigations also found that at least three of the deportees were human traffickers.
NRC Internal Matter
The DB said that the creation of the National Register of Citizens is completely an “internal affair” of India. Cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries is very good, he added.
A BGB delegation, led by Islam, was on a bilateral visit to India to hold DG-level border talks with its counterparts, the Border Security Force (BSF). A host of issues related to cross-border smuggling and activities of criminals and others along the 4,096-km-long front were discussed. However, no discussions were held at the conference over the NRC issue.
The BGB has asked the BSF to take effective steps to prevent killings of Bangladeshis on frontiers as casualty figures sharply rose in 2019. According to BGB, 35 border killings were reported.
“The BSF estimate of the casualty figure is much lower than our calculation. The BSF is following the policy of maintaining maximum restraint and minimal use of force even after being attacked by‘armed border offenders’,” said the BGB chief.